Reading Courses
The Art of Losing by Alice Zenite
HONR 200A: Reading Course with Professor Cheira Lewis
This course explores memory, exile, and identity through Alice Zeniter’s The Art of Losing, a novel that follows a family’s journey across generations from Algeria to France. Through the lens of Francophone literature and cultural narratives, students will examine how colonial legacies, migration, and historical silence shape personal and collective memory. Discussions will focus on how the novel engages with broader questions of belonging, loss, and the ways in which the past continues to shape the present.
Ours to Explore: Privilege, Power and the Paradox of Voluntourism by Pippa Biddle
HONR 200B: Reading Course with Professor Aldrin Magaya
Voluntourism, the practice of blending travel with volunteer work, often in low—or medium-income countries, has sparked considerable debate about whether it benefits or harms the communities receiving assistance. This course will explore the dangers and the advantages of voluntourism and volunteerism. We will clarify the differences between voluntourism and volunteerism, and investigate the ethics associated with voluntourism. To better understand the origins of voluntourism, we will examine the history of inequalities, particularly in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Following this, we will explore the growth of the volunteer industry and its objectives, and discuss the ethical concerns related to voluntourism. One crucial question we aim to answer is: How can we transform good intentions into actions that create meaningful change?
Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart by Nicholas Carr
HONR 200C: Reading Course with Professor Jen Adams
In an era defined by unprecedented connectivity, we often assume that more information equates to greater understanding. Yet, Nicholas Carr's "Superbloom" challenges this prevailing narrative, arguing that the relentless surge of digital communication breeds confusion, erodes empathy, and amplifies our worst instincts. This honors course will engage in a critical exploration of Carr's thesis, examining the psychological and societal consequences of our hyper-connected world.
Seeing like a State by James Scott
HONR 200D: Reading Course with Professor Deepa Prakash
Why do well-intentioned, well-funded, mega plans to improve the human condition go wrong? In this modern classic work of Political Science, James Scott draws on cases as varied as forestry, taxation, census, and city planning to make an argument for the value of multiple perspectives in implementing grand schemes. As we read and discuss the book, we will turn to contemporary debates and policies about improving 'government efficiency' and see how we can apply the book's insights to projects that aim to solve complex issues such as immigration, currency management, and corruption, amongst others.
INTERDISCIPLINARY SEMINARS
King Arthur: Archaeology, History, and Legend
HONR 300Aa: Arts and Humanities Seminar with Professor Pedar Foss
The figure of Arthur as a ‘good’ king resonates strongly in the historical, mythic, and cultural imagination of the British Isles, Brittany, and beyond. This course examines the material contexts, the early written evidence, and the oral traditions that authors, bards, and artists developed into the epic cycle of Arthur and Camelot. The course starts with Stonehenge and ends with Malory’s Morte d’Arthur (1470, printed 1485), a publication that popularized Arthurian tales on a grand scale and whose framework still shapes modern retellings. The course will consider the contradictions and complications of the Arthur cycle, the complex symbolism of its varied characters (e.g., Merlin, Guinevere, Mordred, Morgan le Fay, Percival) and features (e.g., the Round Table, Excalibur, Avalon, the Grail Quest), and their enduring resonance. Students will prepare, present, and lead discussions on assigned materials during the first half of the course, write two papers respectively on the prehistoric and Roman backgrounds for Arthur, and complete their work for ‘W’ certification with a paper and presentation on a film related to this foundational set of stories about the ideals and burdens of leadership.
History, Lineage, and Impact of Sound in Black American Music
HONR 300Ab: Arts and Humanities Seminar with Professor Steve Snyder
An examination of the history and lineage of select African American artists and music through the lens of sound and its influence on generations of creators in American music. A project in sound creation will serve as the culmination. We will listen to artists who have had a profound influence on the way music sounds and explore how creativity, eclecticism, social movements and technology have contributed to the soundscape of America and the world. Synthesis and the component parts of sound creation will offer an opportunity to explore your own creativity.
Evolution and Human Nature
HONR 300Ba: Science and Mathematics Seminar with Professor Kevin Moore
The Philosopher Daniel Dennett once called evolution “the single best idea anyone ever had.” If this claim has any merit, then surely evolutionary perspectives can shed light on important questions about human nature in general, and issues like cooperation, aggression, sex and gender, aesthetics, emotion, cognition, moral judgments, and environmental concerns in particular. We will look at current and historical attempts to develop scientific accounts of human nature, and examine their strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. The course offers an opportunity to explore how the “single best idea anyone ever had” can be applied to human nature and important contemporary concerns.
Climate Change - Science and Action
HONR 300Bb: Science and Mathematics Seminar with Professor Jeane Pope
This course equips students with the scientific understanding and practical tools needed to engage meaningfully with the most urgent challenge of our time. Drawing on earth system science, sustainability studies, and core principles from the social sciences and humanities, this course provides a rigorous foundation in both the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change and the diverse strategies for responding to it.
Students will examine the scientific basis for understanding global climate systems, including greenhouse gas emissions, feedback loops, tipping points, and the links between climate and ecological processes. Simultaneously, the course explores how climate change is shaped by systems of power, inequality, and conflict—emphasizing that science alone is insufficient to address the scale and complexity of the crisis.
Throughout the course, students will cultivate the capacity to think critically, communicate across disciplinary boundaries, and act with integrity and purpose. By the end of the semester, they will be prepared not only to understand climate science, but to navigate the social and political landscape of climate action—and to imagine new pathways toward a more just and sustainable future.
The Power of Pop: How Pop-Culture Matters in Politics, Economics and Society
HONR 300Ca: Social Science Seminar with Professor Deepa Prakash
Whether we actively seek it out or not, pop-culture permeates everything around us- our entertainment, our news, our consumption habits, and our politics. In this course we will examine this often-dismissed area of our collective experience seriously by examining how scholars and commentators across political science, history, economics and cultural studies, to name a few disciplines, understand the significance of pop-culture. We will consider questions such as the role of pop-culture in representing dominant and marginalized identities and why this matters, the pop-culture memorialization of key events, the role of culture industries in the economy, the pop-culture of conservative and right-wing movements, the importance of pop-culture in state’s soft-power as well as the impact of celebrities on various policy issues, in an election year where this may be particularly salient. We will ponder these questions through the lens of various cases of ‘texts’ - drawing on students' interests and the instructor’s research interests in Bollywood and KPop, and be attentive to pressing issues in pop-culture from the West as well as the Global South. Students will research a topic of their choice applying class concepts and materials.
Introduction to Human Rights
HONR 300Cb: Social Science Seminar with Professor Jennifer Mike
What are human rights, where do they originate, and how do they function in today's legal and political arenas? To whom are human rights accessible? Who is responsible for protecting your human rights? This course will introduce students to human rights as an interdisciplinary area of study and practice. It exposes students to the field of study of human rights that can be applied across all disciplines. In this course, we will investigate human rights within historical, political, legal, and cultural frameworks, posing questions about what they are, how they work, and whether they have any restrictions. This course will also consider the contextual approach to human rights from a globalized perspective-African, Asian, Middle East, European and Western perspectives. This course will further reflect on the contextual, culturally diverse, and universalist approaches to rights. Students will be exposed to the works of practitioners and activists and understand how and why we use the lens of human rights to examine contemporary issues including women’s rights, children’s rights, prisoner’s rights, gender issues, etc.
Feminist Inquiry
HONR 300Cc: Social Science Seminar with Professor Leigh-Anne Goins (cross-listed with WGSS 350A)
Feminist Inquiry prepares students to research and write senior theses in WGSS; it is also useful for juniors and seniors planning to undertake interdisciplinary capstone research (e.g., Honor Scholars, Environmental and Media Fellows, PACS and Global Health students). This course is structured to provide an in-depth overview of both feminist methodology, including theories of what constitutes an ethics of feminist research, and appropriate methods to conduct inter/disciplinary research. We explore some of the many questions that drive feminist inquiry, such as: What makes research feminist? Does gender and sexuality matter in research and do minoritized groups have specific experiences and perspectives that can improve research and/or eliminate bias? How can intersectionality theory be operationalized methodologically? What is at stake if minoritized groups are left out of research initiatives? Do feminist research questions require alternative research methods to get at new ways of seeing the world? You will practice different methods (e.g., interviews, survey development, content analysis and coding) in class and will conduct your own mini research project that is grounded in one of the feminist methodological frameworks discussed and that utilizes one or more of the methods outlined in the syllabus. You will also pick up helpful tools to make research and writing easier. Projects can be tailored to your interests. While there are no specific prerequisites, it is helpful for students to have had a course in WGSS or SOC prior to taking this course.